November
2024
November 2024
You Live Longer
An Australian researcher believes that love, in all its forms, may be able to slow the biological clock.
Mark Cohen, a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne said: “Having love in your life will improve your chances of living a long life.”
A study of 1,000 Israeli men with heart conditions found the relationship they had with their wives affected their disease. Cohen found that:
“The men who felt that they were loved by their wives had a 50 per cent reduction in their angina and cardiac disease.”
We are wired to be loved and we need to know that we are loved. We all need to experience loving acceptance, and the opportunity to love others. This is not just about romantic love, but the knowledge that there are others who deeply care for us. I believe that this is because we were created to love and be loved.
God created us to know and love Him and to know and love each other. Experiencing the love of God is a key foundation in life. It gives us the ability to love others and therefore to experience love in return.
Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. Luke 18:6-8
God’s timing is not ours to command. If we do not start the fire with the first strike of our match, we must try again. God does hear our prayer, but He may not answer it at the precise time we have appointed in our own minds. Instead, He will reveal Himself to our seeking hearts, though not necessarily when and where we may expect. Therefore, we have a need for perseverance and steadfast determination in our life of prayer.
In the old days of flint, steel, and brimstone matches, people had to strike the match again and again, perhaps even dozens of times, before they could get a spark to light their fire, and they were very thankful if they finally succeeded. Should we not exercise the same kind of perseverance and hope regarding heavenly things? When it comes to faith, we have more certainty of success than we could ever have had with flint and steel, for we have God’s promises as a foundation.
May we, therefore, never despair. God’s time for mercy will come—in fact, it has already come, if our time for believing has arrived. 
Ask in faith without wavering, but never cease to petition the King simply because He has delayed His reply. Strike the match again and again and make the sparks fly. Yet be sure to have your tinder ready, for you will get a fire before long.
Charles H. Spurgeon.
I do not believe there is such a thing in the history of God’s eternal kingdom as a right prayer, offered in the right spirit, that remains forever unanswered.
Theodore L. Cuyler
November 2024
You Live Longer
An Australian researcher believes that love, in all its forms, may be able to slow the biological clock.
Mark Cohen, a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne said: “Having love in your life will improve your chances of living a long life.”
A study of 1,000 Israeli men with heart conditions found the relationship they had with their wives affected their disease. Cohen found that:
“The men who felt that they were loved by their wives had a 50 per cent reduction in their angina and cardiac disease.”
We are wired to be loved and we need to know that we are loved. We all need to experience loving acceptance, and the opportunity to love others. This is not just about romantic love, but the knowledge that there are others who deeply care for us. I believe that this is because we were created to love and be loved.
God created us to know and love Him and to know and love each other. Experiencing the love of God is a key foundation in life. It gives us the ability to love others and therefore to experience love in return.
Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. Luke 18:6-8
God’s timing is not ours to command. If we do not start the fire with the first strike of our match, we must try again. God does hear our prayer, but He may not answer it at the precise time we have appointed in our own minds. Instead, He will reveal Himself to our seeking hearts, though not necessarily when and where we may expect. Therefore, we have a need for perseverance and steadfast determination in our life of prayer.
In the old days of flint, steel, and brimstone matches, people had to strike the match again and again, perhaps even dozens of times, before they could get a spark to light their fire, and they were very thankful if they finally succeeded. Should we not exercise the same kind of perseverance and hope regarding heavenly things? When it comes to faith, we have more certainty of success than we could ever have had with flint and steel, for we have God’s promises as a foundation.
May we, therefore, never despair. God’s time for mercy will come—in fact, it has already come, if our time for believing has arrived. Ask in faith without wavering, but never cease to petition the King simply because He has delayed His reply. Strike the match again and again and make the sparks fly. Yet be sure to have your tinder ready, for you will get a fire before long.
Charles H. Spurgeon.
I do not believe there is such a thing in the history of God’s eternal kingdom as a right prayer, offered in the right spirit, that remains forever unanswered.
Theodore L. Cuyler
October
2024
October 2024
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Romans 8:26-27
This is a deep mystery of prayer. It is a delicate, divine tool that words cannot express and theology cannot explain, but the humblest believer knows even when he does not understand.
Oh, the burdens we lovingly bear but cannot understand! Oh, the inexpressible longings of our hearts for things we cannot comprehend! Yet we know they are an echo from the throne of God, and a whisper from His heart. They are often a groan rather than a song, and a burden rather than a floating feather. But they are a blessed burden, and a groan whose undertone is praise and unspeakable joy. They are “groans that words cannot express.” We cannot always express them ourselves, and often all we understand is that God is praying in us for something that only He understands and that needs His touch.
It is not necessary to be continually speaking to God, or always hearing from God, in order to have communion or fellowship with Him, for there is an unspeakable fellowship that is sweeter than words. A little child can sit all day long beside his mother, totally engrossed in his playing, while his mother is consumed by her work, and although both are busy and few words are spoken by either, they are in perfect fellowship. The child knows his mother is there, and she knows that he is all right.
In the same way, a believer and his Saviour can continue many hours in the silent fellowship of love. And although the believer may be busy with ordinary things of life, he can be mindful that every detail of his life is touched by the character of God’s presence, and can have the awareness of His approval and blessing.
Then when troubled with burdens and difficulties too complicated to put into words and too puzzling to express or fully understand, how sweet it is to fall into the embrace of His blessed arms and to simply sob out the sorrow that we cannot speak!
from Streams in the Desert
September
2024
He saw the disciples straining at the oars. Mark 6:48
Straining and striving does not accomplish the work God gives us to do. Only God Himself, who always works without stress and strain and who never overworks, can do the work He assigns to His children. When we restfully trust Him to do it, the work will be completed and will be done well. And the way to let Him do His work through us is to so fully abide in Christ by faith that He fills us to overflowing.
A man who learned this secret once said, “I came to Jesus and drank, and I believe I will never be thirsty again. My life’s motto has become ‘Not overwork but overflow,’ and it has already made all the difference in my life.
There is no straining effort in an overflowing life, and it is quietly irresistible. It is the normal life and ceaseless accomplishment into which Christ invites each of us to enter—today and always.
Be all at rest, my soul, O blessed secret,
Of the true life that glorifies the Lord:
Not always does the busiest soul best serve Him,
But he that rests upon His faithful Word.
Be all at rest, let not your heart be rippled,
For tiny wavelets mar the image fair,
Which the still pool reflects of heaven’s glory—
And thus the image He would have you bear.
Be all at rest, my soul, for rest is service,
To the still heart God does His secrets tell;
Thus will you learn to wait, and watch, and labour,
Strengthened to bear, since Christ in you does dwell.
For what is service but the life of Jesus,
Lived through a vessel of earth’s fragile clay,
Loving and giving and poured forth for others,
A living sacrifice from day to day.
Be all at rest, so then you’ll be an answer
To those who question, “Who is God and where?”
For God is rest, and where He dwells is stillness,
And they who dwell in Him, His rest will share.
And what will meet the deep unrest around you,
But the calm peace of God that filled His breast?
For still a living Voice calls to the weary,
From Him who said, “Come unto Me and rest.”
Freda Hanbury Allen